


Shattered

by Nevi



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-26
Updated: 2015-01-26
Packaged: 2018-03-09 04:37:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3236480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevi/pseuds/Nevi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A broken heart cuts as deep as any blade.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shattered

It had been a mistake, a terrible twist in judgement made in grief and stress and…  And now she couldn’t even look at Alistair.  Thoughts of him turning to the burn of bile, the hot sting of tears and yet perhaps this was mercy.  He’d lied to her with his omission that he was in line for the throne.  Another lying shem.  She didn’t know why she was surprised by it.

She missed Tamlen.

Creators did she miss him.  To soil his memory by laying with the first person to show her comfort in the aftermath.  Fen’Harel take her.

Perhaps he had.  Perhaps that was why Tamlen haunted her steps still.  In the mountains, the incident at camp.  The corpse that held his name, his voice…

She couldn’t…

_His eyes are mirrors in death, blight grey skin that reaches for her, broken voice begging for it to stop, for it to stop…_

Her heart hurts so much, a heavy stone crushing her chest, stealing her breath.  But still she moves through the motions of the day.  So many counting on her to end the blight.

And she remembers…

_Merrill braiding flowers into her hair, stories of Mythal and Fen’Harel on her tongue and soft grass beneath their feet.  Kissing Tamlen in the pale light of the moon, the howl of the wolves singing their praises, the wind tugging her hair as insistently as she pulls at his tunic.  She remembers the thrill of the hunt and the warmth of the fire._

_She remembers home._

Alistair doesn’t look at her anymore either.  His honeyed eyes watch the stone beneath their feet when they speak, words that often come out spiteful and sharp, another blade to sink into the space between her ribs.  

She spends her nights away from the camp, away from the fire, away from the pitied looks of her companions.  The trees cradle her in their branches and she listens to the tales the owls call into the night and sometimes, sometimes she can imagine the whispers from camp are those of her clan, the wind rustling the leaves, also rustling the great sails of the aravels.  

Sometimes she dreams of plains filled with flowers.  Great winds that blow petals into the air, rainbow flakes that cling to her hair and clothes; that she catches with unscarred, unbloodied hands.   

Sometimes she dreams of a great blighted dragon, skin molted and grey, pulled tight to the bone that sings not through voice but through blood, a song as beautiful as any minstrel.  _If only she could make out the words…_

One night Leliana sings an old elvish song and the homesickness is nearly too much to bear.  But she is dead to her clan, her funeral rites have already been performed.  She has traded one death for another.   She walks Thedas as one may walk the fade an echo of self, waiting to wake up.

Maybe that’s why when Riordan tells the young grey wardens of their fate, it’s a breath of fresh air, head breaching a cold, dark lake.  She knows.

She’s so close to the end of this waking death now.  

Morrigan isn’t happy with her, turned from her room with angry words, she does not see her again.  The witch keeps her promises.

That night… that last night she dreams of Alistair kissing her in the rain, droplets becoming small rivers that twin and separate, rolling across armour and skin.  She whispers legends into his skin, and for a moment in sleep her heart no longer feels of crumbling stone.  For a moment it beats again with the strength of griffon wings.

She is not afraid.

The morning sun is red, blood in the breeze, lives she cannot save.  The battle has begun.

Shrieking wraiths with sharp bladed claws, giant twisted ogres, blood stained dirt and armour and faces that seem to never end.  It’s a relief to reach the top of Fort Drakon, to look upon the face of a god, clipped wings tethering the once beautiful to the stone.  

It is a hard fought battle, there are fallen at her feet, eyes that watch her unseeing as she grips the sword in her hand tighter.  The Archdemon awaits its death before her, one final blow to end all the suffering.  She thinks she hears Alistair’s voice behind her, she feels Tamlen beside her, helping to hold the sword above her head and with one great stroke it is over…

There is light so bright it blinds her.  Splintering heat burns through her fingers, it radiates to the tips of her pointed ears and into her toes, pain that tears her to pieces more fierce and sharp than the shards of her broken heart.  

They build monuments to her, they call her a hero.  

They raise her with words into legend and they forget.

_Tamlen's hand is warm on hers.  Fireflies dot the evening sky as they lay on a blanket of soft grass. A warm summer breeze keeping off nights chill._

_On her head lies a crown of crystal grace._

_They do not talk.  They listen to the song the darkness teaches them, they read the stories in the stars and they wait for the dawn to come._


End file.
